


Oh, The Places You'll Go

by skiesinlove



Category: No. 6 - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Don't worry this isn't abandoned I'm just working on other stuff, I love these babies too much, The editor for this fic is hella busy but it will not die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 15:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4064776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skiesinlove/pseuds/skiesinlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nezumi, Shion, Safu, and Inukashi try to figure out college and life and oh look there's some ice cream in here too</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Brains in Your Head, Feet in Your Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shion arrives at University and it's scary to be away from home for the first time

There was something odd about looking at your entire life packed into a few medium-sized boxes. Clothes, posters, electronics, valued documents and photographs, all stored away in nothing more than four taped-up sheets of cardboard. Over the span of only a few hours, all of those possessions were placed in drawers, lifted onto walls, and strewn over any flat surface in the dormitory. It was a relieving and unsettling to see all of it without moving from the doorway.

Karan bustled about the room, fidgeting with everything she could get her hands on. Shion let her fiddle. It was good for her, he decided. Maybe it was good for him too.

When she’d circled the entire 10 by 10 foot room three times, Karan stopped. There was nothing else for her to leave her fingerprints on, for her to touch the way only a mother could. She stood in the center of the dormitory with a little mourning smile. Shion joined her, and they both surveyed the room amongst the sounds of dozens of other students and their mothers—and probably some fathers too. For Shion, there was only he and Karan in this tiny room and it was fine.

“Will you be okay, Mom?” Shion asked after several minutes of silence.

“Oh, of course honey,” Karan chuckled with as much sincerity as the chocolate in a Tootsie Roll. “This is what I’ve been raising you for—not to keep you home with me, however much I would like that.”

Karan slid an arm around Shion’s shoulders and squeezed a little too hard. He leaned into the crook of her shoulder and sighed. They stood together a little longer, enjoying simply existing in the same space. An unspoken resolution finally broke the silence, the sudden sense that it was time.

Neither of them could say goodbye, so they hugged one another tightly instead.

“I love you sweetie,” Karan said sweetly, the scent of warm bread and the savory spice of the oven radiating from her blouse. “Make sure to check in every once in a while, okay? I want to hear all about what you’re up to.”

“Of course,” Shion promised. “I love you, too.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay for dinner? I don’t want to leave you here alone,” Karan asked, rubbing Shion’s back as she had when he was ill as a child.

“No, no, my roommate should be here soon enough. Besides, you shouldn’t leave the bakery alone for too long,” Shion assured her—or himself, he wasn’t quite certain.

“Alright sweetie. Text me if you need anything at all,” Karan said sweetly, squeezing Shion too tightly again.

They broke apart, Karan kissed his cheek, they waved a soft farewell to one another, and Shion was left alone among his things.

He sunk into his desk chair, running his fingers through the tangled tufts of his hair. His mother had gone so quickly it felt as though she hadn’t really left yet. He twiddled a pencil between his fingers and waited for her to walk through the door at any moment.

While he waited, his eyes scanned the room. The walls were nearly bare apart from a large poster depicting the periodic table with models of the electron shells drawn on each of the elements—a project he’d completed in his younger years that still brought him some nostalgic comfort. Everything else decorated the space with necessity: books neatly lined up in order of importance on the shelf beneath his desk, his laptop still inside its case, everything so neatly tucked in and away it looked like a collection of very tidily arranged geometrically perfect shapes. There was something about that neatness that made Shion feel very safe, and very detached from everything happening around him.

A knuckled knock on his still-open doorframe pulled him around in his seat. Part of him expected to see Karan standing in the door haloed in comfort and the smell dryer sheets. Instead, a brunette bob-haired woman in a formal summer dress with no scent whatsoever stood where his mother should have been.

“Shion Hazuki?” the woman said in the sort of voice that reminded Shion of fundraisers and blonde A-line mom-cuts.

“Yes?” he answered, standing in polite disappointment.

“I’m Sayuri Collins,” the woman explained with a skeletal smile. “I’m the Director of Housing in Westfall Hall.”

Shion held out his hand, but Sayuri Collins bowed to him instead. Slightly relaxed by the familiarity of the gesture, he returned it much more comfortably.

“Nice to meet you,” Shion replied mechanically.

“Nice to meet you,” the woman repeated, folding her hands in front of her stomach. “I hope you moved in without much complication?”

“Yes, thank you,” Shion nodded, mirroring the placement of her hands.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Sayuri Collins said, though Shion sensed her concern was limited. “I’m here to talk to you about your roommate, Mr. Hazuki.”

“Oh? Is something wrong with him?” Shion asked, his fingers suddenly very busily entwined within one another.

“He, Yamase Fukui, will be unable to attend the university this semester,” the woman said, a small twitch of sympathy in her lips.

“Is he okay?” Shion found his fingers working at each other a little more frantically.

“Oh, Mr. Fukui is just fine,” Sayuri Collins assured him. “But as of right now we will not be assigning you another roommate. You are welcome to request for this room to function as a single, although there is a fee and we will be taking the extra bed out. Otherwise, this room will remain available to any students transferring to North Westfall.”

Shion nodded respectfully, his fingers returning to their motionless entanglement.

“You have two weeks before you need to contact Housing and Dining Services about your room,” she continued, and Shion saw the first faint traces of sympathy on her slightly upturned lips. “Other than that, you can contact me if you need anything at all.”

“Thank you,” Shion said, his mouth moving upwards slightly as well.

“Of course,” the woman replied with a small nod. “I hope the rest of your semester goes well.”

Sayuri Collins and Shion shared another bow—the bending of the waist relieving a little more of Shion’s tension—before she too left. Shion was alone again, this time without the promise of a roommate to fill some of the empty space. He sighed, felt his hips buckle under the weight of whatever Sayuri Collins had left behind, and flopped into the empty desk chair again. An interesting welcome to the university, to say the very least.

Although Shion hadn’t known Yamase whatsoever (apart from the little he’d learned from trawling his Facebook profile) he still felt disappointment leaking into his chest like water from a busted pipe. There was something reassuring in knowing that no matter what, there would be another human to greet you after long days sitting in on drawling lectures. Instead, he’d be returning to an empty room with an empty bed and empty air every day. As much as Shion enjoyed silence studying the night before an exam, there was a certain loneliness to the electric buzz of his fan and his own breath.

Another knock on his door, and Shion looked up still expecting to see Karan holding some sweet rolls and a smile. Unlike with Sayuri Collins, however, he was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t his mother. A girl with a fuzzy rose-colored sweater and a brown bob cradling her satin cheeks leaned against the doorframe.

“Oh, hi Safu,” Shion greeted, managing his first genuine smile for the day.

“Already all moved in?” Safu observed, eyes dissecting Shion’s room like the internal organs of a fetal pig.

“Yeah, my mom just left,” Shion sighed with a shrug.

“Damn, I wanted to see her before she took off,” Safu grumbled, inviting herself into the open desk chair. “Did she leave anything to eat?”

“In the fridge. And she does only live a few hours away,” Shion reminded her.

Safu shrugged in agreement, reaching over to peer into the fridge. Something about Safu’s sarcastic softness—like a mostly-tamed Rottweiler—reassured Shion enough for him to recline slightly within his seat. He gazed around the room again and wondered when exactly he would feel like a university student.

“Can you believe we’re here?” Shion thought aloud, fixating on his bed (made three times by Karan).

“I still feel like Granny is going to walk through the door,” Safu agreed, also sliding back into her chair. “You know, the Earth Festival is going to be happening next week.”

“Right,” Shion nodded, another smile peeling his lips into a grin. “Mother and I usually traveled all the way up to Hokkaido right afterwards.”

“All the way up to Hokkaido?” Safu’s eyes widened. “How’d you do that without missing class?”

“I didn’t,” Shion chuckled. Safu joined in, a sound filled with cherry cakes and summer. “So what’s your roommate like?”

“She seems nice,” Safu replied, swinging her knees as she spoke. “It’s funny, they paired me with an American girl who’s fluent in Japanese. She requested to be put in the hall.”

“Oh?” Shion perked up.

“Yeah, she’s…well, she’s this adorable little redhead and she seems to have the heart of an angel. But we’ll see,” Safu chuckled again. “What about you? Your roommate not here yet?”

“Actually, apparently something happened and I have a single now.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Excited, but more disappointed than I was expecting,” Shion admitted, suddenly aware of all the empty space on the right side of the room. “I don’t know. It would have been nice to have someone to share a bit of life with, even if it was a stranger.”

It was a funny feeling, the slight echo in his chest of the unmade bed. He’d never been shy of friends (if nothing else, he always had Safu), so loneliness had always been a temporary companion. Well. Mostly temporary.

 _No,_ Shion thought, feeling something slimy and barbed crawl into the space between his lungs. _Not with Safu, later. Or never. But not now._

He tried to ignore that yawning mouth beneath his ribs, filled with bitter, strangling teeth. He laughed with Safu about what classes they were taking, promising to help one another with their English. He thought about happier things, gentler things, and let his mind wander amongst those pastures—steered away from that beast’s mouth and throat. After all, there were bright days ahead, with so many hundreds of people to meet.

As he thumbed the pink scar that held his cheek, he wondered who he would meet. It wasn’t just his story after all—the empty space in the room would be filled with new people and new smells. He tried to think of the people who might come into his life. He wondered about their stories, and how he, so small and foreign, would fit into each of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Secretagentfan for being a spectacular editor!


	2. You're Off and Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very succinct introduction to our simple brooding thespian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Secretagentfan is the best editor as always. Also! Sorry about the fact that it's literally been forever since I've updated this, but I promise I'll be updating more regularly now!

Bedsheets, pillowcases, the overused springs of a nylon-encased mattress—soft underneath fingertips too worn from wood and metal. The drag of fingers through unwashed fleece tickled those fingertips, sending a slight shiver up the attached arm. It was soft, but its softness was disquieting.

Nezumi threw the cream blanket to the ground, curling his toes into the fabric. Whipping out a slightly mangled yet still hardy blue rucksack from beneath his bed, Nezumi retrieved something that looked like a worn animal pelt. The rough wool scratched his fingers familiarly. Nodding, Nezumi stood and spread this blanket out over his bed in a greying, patched cocoon.

Moving in was fairly easy when everything you owned fit into a North Face camping backpack. The walls were bare, the floor was bare, the closet—surprise! actually held his old leather pilot’s jacket: otherwise, bare. He had actually managed to fill almost an entire dresser drawer with his jeans, t-shirts, dresses, and underwear, put out his authentic flask from the 1920s prohibition era, and placed “The Bible” (a copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio) on the wire-legged table beside his bed. It was almost cozy.

Apart from his plethora of personal items, there were few comforts in the single-bed dorms of Westfall Hall.  The wall against which his bed was nestled was made from a similar brick to that of his apartment in New York. Nezumi ran his hands over the current-red clay and exhaled some of the tension built up by the thousand-count thread beneath him.

Something in the roughness of the wall was reassuring—like the safety of a barricade. Nezumi had always found more abrasive textures comforting, more...real.

He contemplated the rest of the room fleetingly, as there was nothing particularly eye-catching in the fraying grey carpet, recycled dresser, or dollar-store blinds. An object in the opposing corner piqued his interest: a bland but sturdy desk. If Nezumi had to choose, desks were the most important piece of furniture.

He imagined himself with the desk—he’d flip through the fraying edges of _A Winter’s Tale_ for the hundredth time on it; he’d set up some sheet music and play his guitar or sing while leaning back in its rickety chair; he’d lay down and take a nap on it, bored with his bed. How could Nezumi ignore such potential? That corner would definitely have to be spruced up a bit.

Although Nezumi felt that too many possessions caused unnecessary back problems, the emptiness of the room was daunting. His apartment in the Bronx was much smaller and packed to the brim with books, maps, newspapers, scripts, and the occasional stray sock. But those items had all been sold (ironically enough in payment for the cavernous dorm that was beginning to make Nezumi moderately uncomfortable), so there was nothing to fill the pockets of space between the few pieces furniture. He almost wished that he'd landed in a double, to increase the amount of buffers between himself and the emptiness. But, he reminded himself, there would also be another human person there if that had been the case, and that wasn't happening.

In fact, that he had somehow been lotteried into one of the 5 singles out of 70 dorms was a stroke of luck nearly sacred enough to make Nezumi believe in God. He'd trade solitude for clutter any day. The only forced interactions he'd have to tolerate were the ones shared in the communal bathroom down the hall. Even that prospect wasn't terrible: many an important conversation had been held between two strangers bonding as they bent over a spit-stained sink.

Flopping back on the bed, Nezumi closed his eyes and willed sleep into his veins. It was still afternoon, the sun hadn’t set, but Nezumi had learned to sleep when sleep would come. It was a very fickle friend of his. If there was a moment to shut out the world for an hour or two he would gladly take it.

However, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he wasn’t able to get some shut-eye at that exact moment. Some sort of international student orientation was being held tomorrow, but he’d be ditching the shit out of that nonsense. During the time the other Japanese students would be spending learning about (probably false) information about America, Nezumi could rest as well.

One of Nezumi's many talents was that he was able to fall asleep anywhere. He'd once curled up with his jacket draped over him, nestled beneath a bike rack next to Times Square, and slept like a log. Immediately drifting off on this lumpy box spring mattress was nothing in lieu of that experience.

As he slipped into unconsciousness, he made a succinct list in his head of all the things he would need to do tomorrow. There were books the federal pool of crippling student loans had so graciously paid for that he needed to pick up, a campus to be explored, and he'd need to buy some different sheets if he ever expected to get a good night's sleep.

_“Wherever you go,”_ Nezumi thought he heard in a woman’s crackling, antiquated voice from somewhere in the darkness of his dreams, _“remember that you aren’t there forever. There’s always somewhere else to be—don’t get sentimental unless you intend on staying that way. Attachment is a luxury for the rich.”_

It was the best piece of advice he’d ever been given.


	3. You Know What You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shion sees Nezumi and is a thirsty, thirsty man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Secretagentfan for continuing to be 10/10

_This is pointless and I am going to die_ , were the words playing on repeat for 8 hours in Shion’s head.

The university called this short prison sentence International Student Orientation, and it was held the Saturday before classes began. This gave many of them less than 24 hours to prepare for this arduous, meaningless day filled with PowerPoint presentations and something called “ice-breakers” (created by none other than the devil himself). The stout woman who primarily led the day’s activities assured the first-year Japanese students that each moment contained invaluable knowledge about American culture and society, and would be crucial in their success at the university.

There were only a few even remotely interesting snippets of information that Shion gathered: namely some tidbits about the American legal system and what sorts of things would land him in actual prison if committed. He also learned that even those in the most elite honors program would find some forms of education unbearable.

In reality, the acclimation to the new climate that was America would come with experience, not an endless lecturing on the Revolutionary War and the remnants of the Boston Tea Party in modern society. Shion was a little frustrated that some of the material filtered its way into his brain anyway. It would be terribly hard to forget later.

When they were finally dismissed, 136 students gathered their things and sprinted towards the door to the Ayersworth A 106 lecture hall. Shion stayed behind, waiting for Safu to gather her things.

“Classes haven’t even begun and already you’re showing me up as the number one model student,” Shion remarked, smiling at the notebook Safu had managed to fill with whatever drabble they’d tortured themselves through.

“It’s important information if we want to acclimate quickly,” Safu replied, shouldering her backpack. “Although it might have been more productive if it had been a two-day process. I’m not sure that I caught everything, but hopefully I was able to jot down the essential—what?”

Shion’s mouth flickered in an attempt to push laughter back into his throat. He couldn’t help it, though: Safu’s heart seemed to live inside her brain.

“I’m sure you were able to catch everything you needed to,” Shion assured her, leading a trail through the last of stragglers.

“You think so?” Safu worried, toying with the slack in her backpack straps. Her voice collapsed in on itself for a second, catching somewhere in a tangle of her own thoughts.

Assuming that Safu was extricating her mind from her tongue, Shion allowed himself to enjoy the scenery a little (somehow they’d wandered outside, which was beautiful but not exactly where he’d intended to go and now he had no idea where they were). Some sort of street dead-ended right outside whatever exit they’d come out of. There was a bicycle rack, and across the open greenspace he saw a sign in front of a building—standing at all sorts of odd angles—that read “Computer Sciences”. All very pretty, none giving a clue as to where he was going. Shion decided to start walking in a random direction.

No roads ran directly through the heart of campus, Shion remembered, so the best way to find one’s way was to locate the nearest brick-paved walkway. The very same pathway ran directly beside Ayersworth, so Shion directed himself and Safu towards it. Perhaps the entire day hadn’t been as much of a waste of time, he conceded to himself.

Shielding his eyes from the setting sun, Shion kept the glare on his left and began heading north.

“You know what I thought might be an interesting activity?” Safu finally spoke, as they hit a large, paved plaza with a fountain in the center.

“What?” Shion replied, breathing in the sweet smell of the crabapple trees that lined both sides of the walkway.

“If we did a collaborative conference with all of the international students,” Safu contemplated. “The language barriers might be a little difficult at first but I believe most international students have similar feelings coming to a foreign country. Besides, all of the international residence halls are in the same area so it would be constructive for community building to have us all spend a day together bonding and—Shion where are you taking us?”

Shion paused beside the fountain.

“I’m…not entirely sure to be honest,” Shion confessed with a coy grin. “I was just sort of enjoying the scenery. I hoped we would end up just finding our way back to Westfall.”

Safu gave out an exasperated but affectionate sigh. Lacing their arms together, Safu gently nudged them away from the fountain towards the sunset wreathed in evening fog.

The walk home took about fifteen minutes, and by the time they arrived Shion had gotten a fairly comprehensive look at the layout of the northern side of campus. The grounds were generally well-kept and littered with an astonishing amount of flora—many of which were growing quite beautifully despite being foreign to central California. Most of the buildings were a mismatch of design, material, and color that gave the university the unique feeling of growth.

Safu chattered on for nearly the entire walk about the benefits of an orientation for all international students, and Shion listened quietly. It was nice to hear the familiarity of Safu’s contemplative musings amongst the uncharted territory that lay before each step. Everything was new and exciting; there was so much to see and to do, so many people to meet and share his new life with.

A shiver ran down Shion’s spine. The sun had sunk beneath the horizon, and a mass of gunmetal grey clouds drifted purposefully towards them. There were sakura trees by Westfall, likely to help the Japanese students feel more welcome (Shion felt they eased some of his own homesickness), and their blush-colored leaves whipped and swirled in the wind. They almost looked like they were dancing.

“We should get inside,” Shion observed, allowing another chill to overcome him. It was odd but he felt somewhat energized with the current of cold ripping into him.

“Astute,” Safu teased, pulling herself a little closer and shivering slightly. “Do you want to go to the Westfall dining hall? Neither of us have had dinner yet.”

“Sure,” Shion agreed, but he felt detached from his own voice. He drifted a little outside of his brain, settling somewhere within his body and felt the oncoming storm deep within his bones.

\-------------------------------

After dinner, he and Safu paused outside of Shion’s door.

“Do you want to come in and hang out for a little while?” Shion offered.

“No, I have a Skype date with Granny tonight that I don’t want to miss. She’s probably looking forward to hearing about my day,” Safu replied, smiling a little apologetically.

“Completely understandable,” Shion grinned back in what he hoped was a comforting air. “I think I’ll probably stay in tonight. I’ve spent most of my energy for the day.”

“Are you sure? I heard that there are some games and mingling activities in a few of the common rooms down the hall,” Safu said, tilting her head slightly. She almost sounded worried.

“I’m positive,” Shion reassured her. “I don’t think I would be good company with strangers tonight anyway.”

“That’s true,” Safu agreed. “You’re not very sociable when you’re tired.”

 “Thank you,” Shion chuckled. “Have a nice Skype with your granny. Do you want to meet up at some point tomorrow?”

“Of course,” Safu nodded. “We both have books to pick up from the bookstore. We can meet up there around 11 or so?”

“Sounds perfect. Goodnight Safu.”

“Goodnight Shion.”

Safu reached forward and squeezed Shion’s hand gently, giving him an affection look. Shion returned the gesture and retreated into his room. He hoped he had made the right choice—even with the light and the sound of his fan, his room was as empty as ever. Safu was correct, though, as she always was. Interacting with others wasn’t really viable when his brain was so tired and sluggish. It would be lonely and dark but at least it would be less intellectually stimulating.

When he shut the door behind him, he carefully put away all of his unused supplies and sunk into his desk chair. Unsure of what to do with himself, he closed his eyes for a moment to rest.

Outside, the clouds had opened and the storm was raging against Westfall. The downpour drummed its enormous fingers on the roof, the thunder and lightning set a stage show more beautiful than fireworks, and the wind pummeled into his windows so hard they bowed under the pressure.

Shion had always loved storms. When he was young, if there was lightning and the rain was tumultuous, he would fling his widows wide and raise his voice with the roaring wind. It was one of the only ways he’d found to sooth his racing brain. The window in his dorm didn’t open, though. Of course, he could still scream if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to alarm any of his hall-mates—besides, yelling into the quiet whirr of his fan would bring little satisfaction.

Pulling his creaking desk chair over to the window, Shion contented himself with being as near to the storm as he could. He rested his nose against the glass and peered out into the unique darkness created by wall of clouds.

Flashes of lightning occasionally displayed the world outside: the thrashing branches of the familiar sakura trees, the bullets of rain shooting down from the sky and pummeling into the sidewalk, a few stray students sprinting towards the dorm as quickly as they could. It was unruly and wild and it sent thrills through every inch of Shion’s body. Goosebumps erupted on his skin and he felt a shadowy smile spread across his lips.  He swept the grounds with his eyes, trying to take it all in and commit it to memory, to be accessed when needed.

His eyes stalled on the faint outline of…a…

Shion squinted into the darkness because he couldn’t have been seeing correctly. After blinking several times and staring as intently at the sakura tree about twenty feet away from his window he concluded that he couldn’t be mistaken. Someone was standing beneath that tree, leaned against its trunk, head titled into the rain.

_Who would willingly stand so still in the middle of this storm?_ Shion thought. _I mean, I would but that’s unusual. No one in their right mind would just stand there and get soaked through to the skin._

He was fixated on the dull silhouette, trying to make out any features. Their clothes seemed to be whipping about them, and they were definitely facing upwards towards the sky, allowing the rain to pelt them. They didn’t seem to be at all bothered. Actually, they seemed to be enjoying themselves, reclined against the tree trunk like one would on a sunny afternoon. Another bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the world for a fraction of a second.

Shion’s blood froze in his veins. Although the figure’s head was certainly tilted up, his eyes were as focused on Shion as Shion’s were on the stranger. And those eyes—Shion had never seen anything like them before in his life. They were a shade of grey that had to be unnatural: silvery and fluid as mercury. They seemed to be glaring beyond Shion’s skin into something much less visible, something hidden far within himself. It was so unnerving that Shion felt his goosebumps crawl all over his flesh.

He found he couldn’t look away. The flash of lightning occurred in a sort of slow-motion, seeming to ignite the stranger’s face for several minutes. Shion was frightened, but so unbelievably entranced by that look. Even after the light died out, he could still feel it burning into him.

Time stalled. Shion was unsure of exactly how long the strangers stood gazing at one another. He found himself craving another jolt of lightning, or the cut of lamplights into the darkness, but neither would come. For what seemed like several hours, he peered into the darkness and combed through the downpour to try to make out any more of the stranger’s features, or catch even a sliver of a glance of those piercing eyes.

“Come on,” Shion pleaded softly to himself (or perhaps to some god he didn’t believe in). “One more…”

White-knuckled, his fists were clenched on the windowsill, holding onto his own longing. After an unknown but unquestionably long amount of time, Shion could feel his hunger begin to slip away. The rain and wind were dying down and the storm was beginning to move on. As the torrent turned into a milder stream of water, Shion could make out more of the stranger’s blurred features.

Shion had a hard time pinpointing the stranger’s gender. Their flat chest, broad shoulders, and squared hips were undeniably male, but their face was much more androgynous; their cheekbones were set high, with their almond-shaped eyes resting on their curve. Their coal-grey hair stuck wetly against their shoulders, cradling their angular jaw and delicate nose. Shion decided the matter was inconsequential anyway.

The rain began to drift away into a moderate drizzle, and the trees were almost still. The stranger shuffled their shoulders, turned away from Shion, and walked resolutely towards where the front door to North Westfall lay. So, they were a student then, and they lived in the same wing as Shion.

It wouldn’t be difficult to encounter them later. Still, Shion found he couldn’t move from his spot: his muscles had seized slightly from his immobility and he was still focused on that tree, as though hoping that the stranger would somehow appear there again. He remained there much longer than he intended.

Eventually, the mental and physical weight of the day began to press down on him and he knew he couldn’t fight sleep any longer. Stretching each of his muscles painfully, Shion rose from his chair and threw himself onto his bed. Despite his racing thoughts and lingering desire, Shion found himself drifting off without much difficulty. As his thoughts morphed into dreams, his skin burned with the remnants of that silver gaze. That burning followed him into unconsciousness and eventually carried him away into a biting but faceless slumber.

One of the final thoughts Shion had before his brain finally turned itself off was that he was going to find that stranger as soon as possible. It satiated his thirst only enough to sleep.


End file.
